Advances in computer processing power and network communications have made information from a wide variety of sources available to users on computer networks. Computer networking allows network computer users to share information, software applications and hardware devices, and internetworking enables a set of physical networks to be connected into a single network such as the Internet. Computers connected to the Internet or connected to networks other than the Internet also have access to information stored on those networks. The World Wide Web (Web), a hypermedia system used on the Internet, enables hypertext linking, whereby documents automatically reference or link other documents located on connected computer networks around the world. Thus, users connected to the Internet have almost instant access to information stored in relatively distant regions.
A page of information on the Web may include references to other Web pages and may include a broad range. of multimedia data including textual, graphical, audio, and animation information. Currently, Internet users retrieve information from the Internet, through the Web, by ‘visiting’ a web site on a computer that is connected to the Internet.
The web site is, in general terms, a server application that displays information stored on a network server computer. The web site accepts connections from client programs, such as Internet browser applications. Browser applications, such as Microsoft Explorer™ or Netscape Internet Browser™, allow Internet users to access information displayed on the web site. Most browser applications display information on computer screens and permit a user to navigate through the Web using a mouse. Like other network applications, Web browsing uses a client-server paradigm. When given a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of a document, the browser application becomes a client and it contacts a server application specified in the URL to request the document. After receiving the document from the server application, the browser application displays the document to the user. When the browser application interacts with the server application, the two applications follow the Hyper-Text Transport Protocol (HTTP). HTTP allows the browser application to request a specific article, which the server application then returns. To ensure that browser applications and server applications inter-operate unambiguously, HTTP defines the exact format for requests sent from the browser application to the server application as well as the format of replies that the server application returns.
As the number of physical networks connected to the Internet continues to grow, so too will the number of web sites that are accessible to Internet users and so too will commercial activity on the Internet. Providers of a wide range of products and/or services are continuously exploring new methods for promoting and selling them. Commercial vendors' web sites are similar to other types of web sites except that they usually incorporate functionality to enable financial transactions between users and vendors.
Currently, during an electronic commerce transaction on the Internet, a consumer enters the URL of a vendor and the browser application requests a web page associated with the URL from the appropriate server application. The consumer may select articles displayed on the vendor's web page and submit the selection to the vendor through the browser application. For example, a consumer on the Internet, wishing to purchase a software application, may enter the URL of a vendor into the browser application. The browser displays a corresponding web page and the consumer may order the software application on the web page through the browser application. Upon receiving the consumer's selection, the vendor requests payment for the selected articles before delivering them to the consumer. The consumer may pay the vendor through credit cards or the vendor may require cash upon delivery of the selected articles. However, for consumers who do not have credit cards, do not wish to use credit cards, or do not have cash available at the time of delivery of the selected articles, this method of purchasing articles during electronic commerce is unsatisfactory.
Some employers currently offer, as a benefit to their employees, payroll deduction plans as a method of paying for predetermined products and/or services with predetermined vendors. Under the payroll deduction plan, the employer may deduct the cost of already purchased articles and/or services from an employee's future pay checks. Before the employee can use the payroll deduction plan as a payment option, the employer must approve the total purchase amount and the vendor. While this scheme affords employees the option of purchasing products and services on future earnings, the list of predefined products/services and vendors is usually limited. Moreover, the payroll deduction payment option is not utilized in electronic commerce. As electronic commerce on the Internet grows, so too will the desire to use the payroll deduction plan as an option for on-line purchases.